£40m loan for McLaren factory

McLaren Group has secured a loan of more than £40 million to help fund construction of its new factory, where its new MP4-12C will be built.

The Independent says the loan from HSBC is the first time McLaren has taken on debt of more than £1m since 2005. McLaren Group will own the factory in Woking and then lease it back to McLaren Automotive, the road car side of the business. A total of 300 people will be employed at the factory.

The Independent also said that McLaren was looking to sell 48 per cent of McLaren Automotive to private investors, with the rest of the company retained between Ron Dennis, the Bahraini Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund and the Swiss TAG group.

Initial production of the MP4-12C will commence at McLaren’s current factory later this year, before shifting to the new site in the spring.

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If the FIA hadn't wanted a slush fund, that McLaren gave them an excuse for, then McLaren wouldn't have needed this loan.

The cheating in McLaren was by a daft engineer, but Alonso knew about it. That much was clear with the statements released by the FIA in to the investigation. Unfortunately it was Mike Coughlan who was using information he'd got from Ferrari. Some of the transcripts showed Alonso talking with De la Rosa about that information.